Easter thoughts

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit. (1 Peter 3.18)

G K Chesterton famously answered the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” with two words: “I am.” Christ did not become creation – he became man. And he did not die for suffering, but suffered for sins. Yet in doing so he redeemed both the suffering of man and the suffering of creation, both of which are the result of our sin. The cause is a deeply sobering thought. The solution is one of the fundamental truths of the Gospel.

But another fundamental truth is that Jesus’s suffering was only the means to an end – the defeat of sin and its swallowing up in the victory of the Resurrection and Ascension to the Father. Jesus is now declared in power to be both Lord and Christ, and in him we who are redeemed also sit at the right hand of the God who dwells in unapproachable light. That’s both the personal and cosmic meaning of the Easter. This weekend above all is the time to glorify him in that fact: it’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!

About Jon Garvey

Training in medicine (which was my career), social psychology and theology. Interests in most things, but especially the science-faith interface. The rest of my time, though, is spent writing, playing and recording music.